SKS

[Chako]

I do not know what it is like in the States, but up here in Canada, there is an over abundance of SKS surplus rifles. Combine their cheap price of around 175 to 230 Canadian dollars, and an abundance of corrosive primer military surplus ammo, and you have a rifle that many folks own. These are all pinned to only 5 rounds as per Canadian laws.

I bought a pair at a Canadian Tire of all places. Both are from the Tula arsenal and date to around 1955. I had a selection of SKSs to look at on the store floor. They only had the one with a laminated wooden stock, and I have decided to keep that one stock. All others had the hardwood stock. I selected another to spruce up a little. What I didn't know at the time, someone had peened the bayonet so that when I tried to make a stock conversion, I had great difficulty in removing the bayonet. All else went very well however. I added an ATI TactLite stock, NcStar Boar Blaster combo package, bolt on muzzle break, and bipod.


I love the 7.62x39 round. I have used the laminated stock SKS in a few 3 gun competitions using iron sights. You can say I am a fan of the SKS.

 

[desi2358]

Sadly we don't have much, as far as current imports, here in the US. The chinese imports were cut off years ago for political reasons. A few made it in lately from Albania (legal only because they were able to prove they got them years ago as I understood it).

The last big quantity was Yugoslav made, from the various countries that once were part of that state. Unless abused, which some where, they were very nice rifles. Some appeared to have never been issued and bring a good price now as "collector grade".

No chinese ammo for us here either (political again) but new commercial Russian and others usually available and not too expensive. Non corrosive as well, which is good since many people don't seem to ever clean their guns. A very good thing with the Yugo models as they didn't chrome plate the bores on their rifles. Actually the only surplus in recent memory was Yugo made, brass case, lead core ball. Very good ammo though still corrosive (not a problem for those who do clean properly).

I've always been a fan of the SKS myself, nice rifles shooting a decent round. A good all around utility rifle with an interesting history as a military weapon.

 

[BUFF]

I bought my Chinese Norinco Type 56 SKS brand new in the box in 1993 for $118.00 Used ones sold at gun shows for $70-$100. A crate of non-corrosive steel case ammo for them was about $75 for an odd number of rounds in the crate, about 1,200 if I remember.

Being "future minded," there are probably thousands of them cosmolined and sealed in PVC pipe buried all over the west, with millions of rounds of ammo also water-tightly packed.

Very fun plinker.

 

[sheepdawg]

You bubba'd a Russian???

 

[jack the toad]

I like the SKS. I also bought a decent norinco M14SA that was $300 before the embargo. I've seen SKS's from $35 and up during this same time.

 

[Richard Simmons]

Good deal on your new rifles. I see some of the Chinese models around here but they are always, heavily covered in cosmolene, rode hard and put up wet and priced too high.

Here are the four I have:

L-R Albanian, Yugo 59/66, Norinco, Russian Refurb.

 

[Arik]

Not an SKS fan but they are widely available here. No new imports though. The last one came in around summer and were Slovanian parade rifles.

 

[Nighthawk0083]

I saw some on my last trip to Prescott. Me and a friend went around to all of the shops. I couldnt believe the prices for SKS's, they varied from $475-300ish. All I saw were Yugos some still gummed up with cosmoline. I think my yugo was something like $90 when I got it years back. I remember seeing cases and cases years ago at gun shows lowest price I saw was $75. Prices have been driven up solely based on fear here in the states by greedy gun dealers.

 

[rifmon]

I see no downside to an SKS. I have an early or mid sixties from arsonal 26 and I had a trigger job to eliminate any possible accidental discharge and had a spring loaded firing pin installed to avoid a possible slam fire. So I paid $300.00 for the gun and roughly 150.00 in upgrades.

With good (and I mean ones that actually work) stripper clips of 10, charging the SKS is super fast.

Mine is sorts beat up looking. Just the way I like!

 

[DWalt]

Wish I had bought a few when the gun show prices were about $80. They are seldom seen at gun shows today, and tend to be priced in the $400-$500 range. A few months ago, a friend bought one with some mechanical problems for $350, but I fixed it for him fairly quickly.

 

[loeman]

I bought my new Chinese Norinco SKS about 20 years ago for $75. I recently shot it for the first time. Wow, it was a lot of fun. It has fairly light recoil and quite accurate too. I look forward to shooting it again soon.

 

[Nighthawk0083]

I always wanted an sks-d. I found one at a show one time and I think it was priced around $200 which I thought was ridiculous. Havent seen one since. Everyone has a story like that though. Haha

 

[DocB]

Almost always a better weapon than the AK47. . .that ought to rile up a lot of people. The exception is the ones that were being used during the Veit Nam war. That was a fine gun and I wish I had one today. We were buying the SKS's for $65 back in the early 1990's. I always picked out the carbine models with the short barrels. Even back then and despite all the grease, these guns were so old you would often find rusted out parts upon disassembly. My LGS would let me sit on the floor and tear down another gun to find the parts that I needed to replace the rusted ones. Then we would throw the gun in the back room and let other people use it for parts. I'm pretty sure that I was buying SKS's that were manufactured close to the inception of the weapon. . .at worst, guns from the 1950's. If I ever find an AK47 from that time period, I will be all over it. The new AK is such junk, but they do work.